Amanda and I jumped up at the same time. Amanda went and took Larissa from Cage’s hands. Once the little girl was free, Cage took another step toward Tawny until he was towering over her. I reached between them and pushed him back before he could explode.
Once I positioned myself between them, I got in her face. “Listen, bitch, the only white trash in this room is the one who slept with a married man. An old married man at that. You call my man one more name and I will knock those ridiculously high heels out from under you. So back the hell off before you end up on your ass.”
I heard someone smother a laugh from behind me and I didn’t have to look to know it was Preston. Then someone started to clap. I glanced over to see Dewayne stand up from where he’d been reclining with his feet propped up. He was clapping with a pleased grin on his face. Then someone else started clapping. Rock had stood up to join him. Slowly, one by one, everyone in the waiting room was on their feet and clapping.
Tawny’s face was redder than her hair. She snarled then spun around and stormed out of the room, leaving her daughter behind with Amanda, who had taken her to the restroom to get her away from the scene she’d been afraid Tawny was about to cause.
Once she was gone, Cage wrapped his arm around me and handed me my bottle of water. “Here you go, mama bear. You need to rehydrate yourself after that performance,” he informed me.
“Damn, I was hoping she would stay. I wanted to see Eva take her down. That’d have been hilarious,” Preston said, reaching over to give me a high five. I slapped his hand and laughed.
Amanda slowly walked back into the room holding Larissa. “Is everything okay? I heard clapping.”
Instead of answering her, everyone started laughing.
CAGE
After Low was in labor for ten hours, Marcus came to announce that she had given birth to a healthy, five-pound-seven-ounce boy. His name was Eli Cooper Hardy and, according to his father, he looked just like Low.
Marcus’s eyes were red like he’d been crying, and I wondered if he had. The grin on his face was huge as he answered questions about Low and the baby. I watched Eva as she listened to everything he said. She was soaking it all up.
“You gonna let your baby be born without your last name?” Preston asked me in a low whisper as we stood at the window of the nursery, waiting for Marcus to bring the baby so we could all see him. I glanced over at Eva, who was talking to Trisha. Her hand was protectively on her stomach as her eyes kept looking over at the other babies in their bassinets in the nursery. I wondered what she was thinking.
“No. I’m working on that,” I replied.
Preston nodded. “Good. I’ll let you go first since you have a pressing matter to attend to,” he replied, pointing at Eva’s swollen stomach.
“What do you mean you’ll let me go first? Are you gonna propose to Amanda?” I asked.
He smirked and tucked some of his hair behind his ear. “Yeah, I gotta talk to Marcus about it first. He needs time to warm to the idea or he’ll blow his shit again if I just spring it on him.”
I chuckled, remembering the night behind Live Bay when Marcus had beat the hell outta Preston when he found out Amanda and Preston were seeing each other. “Yeah, he’ll need a heads-up.”
The door to the nursery opened, and Marcus stepped inside holding a small bundle. Literally. It looked like a rolled up blue blanket. It wasn’t big enough to be real.
Eva stepped back and grabbed my arm, squeezing it tightly as she looked at the baby that was in fact in that blanket. Its small face peeked out of it, although his eyes were closed. I couldn’t tell that he looked like either Marcus or Low. He was all squishy.
“He’s beautiful.” Eva sighed, leaning into me.
I wouldn’t call him beautiful, but I wasn’t going to argue with a pregnant woman. I wrapped my arms around Eva’s stomach and held her close to my chest. Everyone prattled on about the baby and who he looked like while Marcus held him up. Obvious pride on his face.
Low finally had a family. One that would love her and cherish her. It was something she always wanted. She didn’t need my french fry Fridays anymore to make her happy. She also didn’t lose her shit if I didn’t have Jarritos in my fridge when she came over. I didn’t supply her favorite drink anymore. Marcus did.
And I was happy about that.
* * *
Convincing Marcus to let Low come over to the house and entertain Eva with Eli today had been hard. Eli was two weeks old, and this was Low’s first official outing. Not because she didn’t want to get out, but because Marcus was too damn protective. After explaining to Low why I needed Eva to be distracted, she’d packed up the baby and informed Marcus they were coming over with or without him. Luckily, he’d come with them, because I needed his help if I was going to pull this off.
“I still can’t believe you’ve got us over here on Christmas Eve. Could you not have picked another time to do this?” Marcus grumbled as we set the piano down inside the barn.
“Shut up. You’ll have Low and Eli home in plenty time for Santa Claus,” I replied. Then I threw the blanket we’d used to protect the piano off the instrument, and Jeremy helped me fold it up.
“How you gonna get this thing tuned in time?” Marcus asked.
“My mom’s on her way over,” Jeremy answered for me. That had been one of the biggest surprises. When I’d told Jeremy what I wanted to do, he’d offered his mom’s help. I hadn’t expected her to help me, but she had. And she’d worked a miracle.
Marcus just chuckled and shook his head. “You’re crazy, you know that, right?”
I just smiled. Because he just might have been right.
“I need to go on. Eva will notice my truck down here if she looks out the window. Mom will have it working like a charm in no time. Just leave the door unlocked and she’ll get everything ready for you.”
I thanked Jeremy before he left. Then I turned to look at Marcus. “Well, guess we’re done. You can take your crew home and get ready for Santa to come.”
“I got four more weeks before Santa brings me my present,” he said, following me to the door.
I glanced back at him. “Why four more weeks?”
Marcus smirked. “You don’t know, do you?”
I didn’t know what? “Not following you, man.”
Marcus slapped me on the back and let out a loud laugh. “And I get to be the one to break the news. Cage, after Eva has the baby, you can’t have sex for six weeks.”
What? I stopped walking. “Are you f**king kidding me?”
Marcus laughed even louder and headed out the door of the barn.
Six weeks? For real?
Chapter Twenty-Five
EVA
I hadn’t seen much of Cage today, and I was missing him. Low had convinced Marcus to stay for dinner, and I had enjoyed the company and holding Eli, but I wanted alone time with Cage. Now that they were gone and I had cleaned up the kitchen, Cage was still not back from going to get his phone that he thought he’d left in the barn.
His presents were wrapped already and tucked under the tree, so I didn’t have anything else to do. The bedroom in the barn’s light came on. What was he doing in there? I waited a minute and when the light didn’t go off, I decided I was going after him. I grabbed my wool coat from the hook behind the door and put it on. Then I slipped on my boots before I headed across the frosty grass.
I heard music. Piano music. I stopped and listened, looking around. Where was that coming from? Someone was playing a piano. Thinking about a piano caused my heart to hurt. Cage hadn’t asked about the piano yet. But he would. I didn’t want to tell him I’d given it away. But I wouldn’t be able to lie to him either.
The music started playing again. I’d heard that song before. I wasn’t sure what it was just yet because the person playing it wasn’t exactly a pianist. They did have the tune down though. I started toward the barn again, and the music got louder. Was that coming from the barn? Surely not. Why would someone be playing a piano in the barn? I glanced around again and saw nothing.
I hurried to the barn and opened the door.
There were candles everywhere. The door slammed closed behind me as I let what I was seeing sink in.
My piano sat in the middle of at least a hundred pillar candles that lit up the barn. Sitting behind the piano was Cage. He was playing the song I’d heard outside. When had Cage learned to play the piano? I couldn’t seem to register everything at once.
Then he started to sing.
“It’s a beautiful night.
We’re looking for something dumb to do.
Hey, baby, I think I want to marry you.”
Cage was singing to me, and he was singing a Bruno Mars song. He wasn’t very good at it, but hearing his deep voice as he played the song on my piano brought tears to my eyes. How had he got my piano back? And who had taught him to play this?
He glanced up from his fingers he was studying so hard and grinned. Then he started singing some more. A giggle bubbled up inside me, and I covered my mouth to hold it in. The grin on his face as he continued watching the keys so that he didn’t miss a note was adorable.
He came to the end of the song and dropped his hands from the keys and let out a sigh of relief with the smile still plastered on his face. I opened my mouth to ask him all the questions going through my head, but he walked over to stand in front of me and dropped to one knee. Oh my God. The song. He wasn’t just being ridiculously adorable. He was proposing to me. I watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. “Eva, I want my always,” he said, and held up a princess-cut diamond ring with a halo of tiny sapphires around it. “Will you marry me?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and kiss his sweet perfect face, but all I managed to do was start sobbing. I nodded and smiled through my tears as he took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger. Then he stood up and pulled me into his arms.
“You got my piano back,” I managed to say through my tear-clogged throat.
“Yeah, I did.”
“You played it,” I said.
“If you could call what I just did playing it, then yeah, I did.”
I pressed my face into his chest and kissed it. “It was beautiful.”
Cage’s chest vibrated from laughter. “Baby, my singing is not beautiful.”
He was wrong. It was beautiful. His deep voice was smooth and on key. It had been perfect.
“Your dad never gave that piano away. It’s been in Jeremy’s basement. Wilson bought the kid’s center another piano and gave it to them,” Cage said, pulling back to look down at me. “I was going to go buy it from whoever had it, so I went to Jeremy to find out where it was. Your daddy said you’d want it back one day. So the piano is a Christmas gift, but it isn’t from me. It’s from your dad.”
Nothing could have made this moment more perfect. Nothing. . . but that.
Epilogue
I stood in my bedroom in front of the mirror. My stomach was even bigger now, but Cage didn’t seem to mind. He acted as if my stomach was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He had his hands on it more than he had them on any other parts of my body.
The white dress that I’d had altered to gather under my br**sts and hang loosely over my stomach was perfect. It was exactly what I’d always imagined when I imagined this day. And I’d been imagining this day since I was a little girl. I reached up and touched the loose curls that Low had helped me style. She had said Cage would want my hair down, but that we could still fix it. The way she had pulled it all over my shoulder and pinned it in place was so pretty.
I stepped over to the window to look into my backyard. It had been transformed into what looked like a magical forest. I had never seen so many flowers. Amanda, with the help of her mother, had handled all the decorating. Friends were filling the seats below.
Daisy was dancing around in circles, holding Preston’s hands. The flower girl dress I had picked out looked adorable on her; the flowers in her hair, however, were starting to fall out. I doubted any were left by the time the wedding started.
Marcus was standing near the front of the gazebo, where the groomsmen would all be standing soon, holding a happy little boy who had his hand stuck in his mouth while he took in the world around him.
Then there was the rock star. He looked different in a suit. He didn’t look like the guy who I saw on magazines and television. He seemed normal. And everyone here treated him like he was just that. A regular guy.
“I’m parked out back with the getaway car. You just say the word and we’re out of here,” Jeremy said from behind me. He was here! I spun around and threw my arms around his neck. I hadn’t seen him since he’d come to tell us bye before he hit the road the day after Christmas.
“You’re here!” I squealed.
“Hell yeah, I’m here. I was invited, right?”
Laughing, I hugged him before stepping back to take in his appearance. His hair was longer and his face was scruffy. He had hair on it now, which made him look more badass than before. “You look different,” I said.
“Yeah, I’m trying new things. The hair is just easier,” he explained.
“Are you back for good or are you still traveling?”
“Not done yet,” he replied.
“Are you happy?” I asked. I wanted him to be happy.
A small grin tugged at his lips. “I will be. . . I think.”
What did that mean? I started to ask when my door opened back up again.
“Hey, you two, wrap it up. The show’s about to start,” Amanda said, sticking her head in the door.